Rival Boxing Gear

The Air Punch Mitts offer maximum protection when training with powerful punches thanks to the innovative Air Cushion System.

The secret of these mitts lies in the way the foam inside the gloves is cut and layered, allowing air itself to act as a natural cushioning and shock absorption system .

Once the glove's outer layer is assembled, the Air Cushion System provides maximum comfort and protection.

Since the first boxing gloves were made, there has always been a fundamental design flaw. More precisely, the point where the glove's striking area met the wrist shaft was never exactly where the boxer's wrist was located.

Trainers therefore had to lace and tape the gloves above that point each time to secure the glove firmly around the wrist and provide much-needed wrist support.

That is why Rival redesigned the construction and assembly of gloves. Inspired by the RS1 and by making the glove body shorter and the cuff higher, the Angled Lace Track—with an angle of 15 degrees— was created.

This innovative, creative, and logical design ensures that the glove sits precisely around the boxer's wrist when laced, for a perfect anatomical fit and the desired wrist support!

Rival Boxing pays attention to the smallest details in ergonomics and anatomy. ergonomics and anatomy. For some of its gloves, the wrist is cut at a 15º angle so that it follows the natural angle of a boxer's hands. With this detail in mind, Rival incorporated the tapered design into its gloves. in its gloves.

Take a look at the back of your hand: you'll see that the line from the top of your little finger to your wrist forms an angle, and from your wrist to your forearm there is another angle. Unlike most other manufacturers, Rival takes this into account when designing its gloves.

Because the wrist is narrower than the cuff that wraps around the forearm, fit Rival gloves more snugly around a boxer's wrist which provides maximum comfort, stability, and performance!

Rival strives, across as many product lines as possible, to guarantee an ergonomic and anatomical design that is as possible .

This principle forms the basis of the design philosophy and ensures that Rival Boxing Gear pays special attention to every aspect of every new idea – whether it concerns the correct anatomical fit for our RNFL groin protector or gloves such as the RB5 bag gloves that stay firmly secured, allowing you to form a perfect fist kunt maken.

After tying gloves thousands of times over his 40 years in the sport, Russ began to realize that there was not only a pattern, but also a reason and logic behind the way gloves were laced.

When Rival developed the very first sparring glove, Russ (CEO and founder of Rival) wanted to implement several very important features. He wanted to create a glove that:

1. would perform just as well as, or even better than, any other sparring glove on the market.
2. could be used by top professionals round after round with complete confidence.
3. would last longer than anything they had ever used before.
4. would feature technology and design never seen before, which Russ had envisioned for at least 15 years.

Thus, the "ERGO LACE TRACK SYSTEM" was born. By using a deep, crisscrossing pattern around the wrist and a ergonomically correct 15-degree angle at the wrist, we created the perfect fit—while keeping the laces hidden at the same time.

This paved the way for Rival's very first sparring glove, the RS1. This concept was so successful that the entire high-end line was built around this design. All of these designs are Rival inventions and have since become industry standards.

The Ergo Strap System offers an ergonomic fit, firm support, and secure fastening with a wide hook-and-loop closure. The strap starts wide on the palm side—up to 10 cm (4 inches) —and gradually tapers as it wraps around the wrist.

The closure runs at a 15° angle across the wrist, precisely matching the natural position of a clenched fist for optimal support and protection.

The Ergo Strap Xtreme System offers the best ergonomic fit, tension, and support you need in a glove with a single strap and hook-and-loop closure instead of laces.

By increasing the width of the strap, especially around the wrist, you get maximum support and protection with a single-strap glove.

The RS100 sparring glove is one of Rival's highlights, thanks in part to the innovative and ingenious Ergonomic True Fist Construction system.

When you place your hand in this glove, you can comfortably close your fist for the most natural fist position possible, without uncomfortable pressure from the foam and without having to bend the glove before your hand is in the natural punching position.

The principles of Ergonomic True Fist Construction allow you to freely open and close your hand without disrupting the construction of the glove's hand compartment. Comfort, safety, and maximum performance are guaranteed!

For as many products as possible, Rival strives to apply the principles of Feather Lite: providing our customers with maximum performance and protection combined with the lowest possible material weight.

We look for ways to reduce the size and weight of our equipment to ensure efficiency. If we can find a lighter, thinner material that offers the same performance and durability as a heavier or more traditional material such as leather, we use it. Innovation and attention to detail— that’s the Rival way!

Intelli-Shock D3O™ is the world’s best shock-absorbing padding Rival was the first—and remains the only—company in the boxing and MMA world to use it.

With approximately 6 mm of Intelli-Shock padding you get the same protection as with approximately 25 mm of other padding. This is because it uses Intelligent Shock Absorption™—at low speeds, the molecules move freely (soft and flexible), while at high speeds, they lock together (providing excellent shock absorption).

The RB10 Intelli-Shock boxing gloves harden on impact. This reduces impact load by 40%* and makes the glove approximately 38% lighter than regular boxing gloves with gel technology.

Rival is convinced that the ingenious parabolic design of the RPM5 punching shields is the key to their popularity in the martial arts world.

These shields resemble a satellite dish—the unique parabolic design has a curved front and a curved back that fits perfectly in the palm of your hand When you wear these shields, the parabolic design acts like a catcher’s mitt, allowing you to catch punches perfectly.

The shields are made of thin, rigid foam with a high density and reduce the impact on your elbows and shoulders.

When it became popular to make punching shields with a curved front, Rival Boxing quickly realized that this created an empty space between the wrist and the punching shield—meaning your arm and wrist did not receive the necessary support when throwing a punch.

The solution: Rival designed the Wedge—a high-density foam piece that fits precisely into the space between the punching shield and the wrist. When you are struck, absorbs the Wedge the impact and also prevents the punching shield from shifting.

In short, the Wedge is yet another example of the unparalleled attention to detail that Rival devotes to every product.

With gloves without laces, the wrist is often the weakest and most vulnerable part of the glove. That’s why there’s the Wrist Bolt!

With this innovation, Rival has extended the glove’s cuff so that it reaches higher than where the wrist normally ends. This design—combined with high-density foam—ensures that Rival gloves with Wrist Bolt provide the maximum wrist support and protection that this type of construction has to offer.

Before the invention of the Wrist Lock by Rival, most gloves on the market with hook-and-loop closures had just one simple flap that provided little wrist support.

When Rival produced their very first boxing bag glove, the RB1—a hugely popular glove that has remained virtually unchanged since its introduction in 2003—it was not only the first time a high-quality glove had been made without leather, but also the first time the new Wrist Lock system had been integrated.

The Wrist Lock system consists of a hook-and-loop closure with a piece of webbing threaded through a polypropylene loop. By pulling on the loop, a fighter can tighten the glove evenly on both sides—for maximum support, wrist stability, and comfort.

True to the philosophy of Rival Boxing, we continually strive for evolution, improvement, and innovation. Hence the development of the Wrist Lock 2 system.

Rather than adhering to a one-dimensional adjustment, Rival invented the double V-shaped strap With a loop on both the thumb side and the opposite side, the Wrist Lock 2 ensures that both sides of the glove are compressed evenly—similar to applying tape over the cuff of a professional boxing glove.

Rival has reinvented wrist support in boxing gloves step by step. The original Wrist-Lock system introduced an independent hook-and-loop closure that supports the wrist evenly on both sides—similar to professional taping.

With Wrist-Lock 2 Rival refined this principle further through the double V-shaped strap: by looping around both the thumb side and the opposite side, both sides of the cuff are pressed evenly for an even more precise fit.

The Rival Wrist-Lock 3 system is the next step in this evolution—Rival’s latest patented closure technology. The independent double hook-and-loop system tightens the wrist simultaneously and evenly from both sides, comparable to the stability of a traditional lace-up closure but with the convenience of hook-and-loop fastening. The result: maximum wrist support with every punch—without compromising freedom of movement.